The WebSocket protocol enables traditional half-duplex Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) or HTTP over SSL (HTTPS) communication to be upgraded to a bi-directional, full-duplex communication channel over a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection. The WebSocket protocol has been standardized by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards organization as RFC 6455. The WebSocket protocol, as standardized, was intended to be a generalized protocol and may lack extended functionality that may be desired by a user. One example of desired extended functionality arises in situations where an application utilizing the WebSocket protocol lacks resources to efficiently process all of the received data in a timely manner. If data is being received at a rate that is faster than the optimal rate, an application utilizing the WebSocket protocol may become overwhelmed. Although the WebSocket protocol was intended to be extensible, the standardized version lacks specific guidance on how to best extend the protocol. Therefore, there exists a need for an efficient way to extend the WebSocket protocol.